if only to dream
by Cella N
Summary: Why dream, when you can’t even sleep? MIRANDA. MARIE. Hopelessness and hope.


**A/N:** For **scuttling**. To Vienna Teng's _Stray Italian Grayhound_.

* * *

**if only to dream**  
_I was ready for the downslide  
But not for spring to well up  
This feeling calls for everything I can't afford  
To know  
Is possible now_

_

* * *

  
_

Miranda learned the hard way that all dreams ended in the Order.

She did not mind it particularly, since being an insomniac and all meant that she did not need to sleep much, and by extension, did not need to _dream_. But there were times when Lenalee talked to her about her own dreams and Miranda wondered if she should tell the younger girl that it had been ages since she'd last dreamt of _anything_.

Real nightmares, trapped inside a tiny sadist's mind, at her every beck and call-- sure, she had had those, and the scars to prove it. But never dreams. Or better said, never _nice_ dreams.

When she confessed this to Lenalee, the small girl thought that it was a condition that needed to be fixed. The bitter woman that inhabited Miranda's brain muttered about how everything about her was a condition.

Insomnia. Low self-esteem. Jitters. Clumsiness. Everything was a condition of whatever it was that had traumatized her into being who she was.

"Maybe then you won't be as jumpy," Lenalee had said, sunshine smile on her face, and Miranda had agreed to do whatever the girl wanted her to.

They started with aroma therapy, making her sleep in a room that smelt like ocean breeze and lavender. She'd left the room crying three hours later. The ocean only reminded her of her first failure as an Exorcist.

It went on to acupuncture, which Lenalee herself applied before her brother could even _offer_ it. And thank god for that, because Lenalee was a patient girl, and Miranda truly appreciated her effort. But it did not work either, because each pin and needle reminded her of being pinned to her clock, and as a result, no good dreams came out of it.

After that, Lenalee said she would look into more techniques, and Miranda took that to mean that she had given up. _It's fine_, she wanted to say, _I've given up, too._

--

The problem with not having dreams was that Miranda never aspired to have more, or want more. The phrase _in your dreams_ never rang true with her. And aside from that, she was a master at talking herself out of wanting anything, because let's face it, who would want her back?

She liked her new room at the new headquarters, because it was not too spacious and not to pretentious. She felt that it was exactly what she deserved, for not being as excellent an Exorcist as Kanda, or Lavi, or Allen, or Lenalee (or anyone). But she also liked it because it was a bit isolated from the other children, who had a tendency of making noise before bedtime.

Just because Miranda was an insomniac did not mean she did not appreciate quiet every now and then.

The first night she was allowed to sleep there, she dreamt of music. It was nothing familiar, and it wasn't until her hand twisted the doorknob to open the door that she realized she wasn't dreaming, nor asleep. There was someone playing music close by.

She was not such a curious person, because she had always managed to convince herself that if she couldn't see something, it was because it did not want her to see it. But this time, the music called _her_. And she went.

Past the closed doors, down the hallways, even past the laboratories. Right down to the garden, or inner patio, or whatever it was. And there it was, the source of the music, easily two meters tall, and the kindest person she had met, of his size.

The music stopped, and she belittled herself for interrupting, opening her mouth to tell him not to stop.

"Why don't you join me, Miranda?" he asked before she could even speak, and because his voice was like music too, she listened. "I hear you still have trouble sleeping?"

"Dreaming," she corrected him, taking a seat at some distance. He would surely feel her jitters if she was close, and think--well, she did not know what he would think. She did not even know what _she_ thought of him. He was a lovely man, easily someone she could find a modicum of calm around, not too loud and not uninterested, and infinitely patient. Even his voice, low as it was, had a soothing quality.

Or perhaps it was because she would always remember the fire, his giant hands around her wrists so gently, and those words. _You did good. You can stop._

"Dreams are important," he said, breaking her thoughts. She thought that maybe he did not think her important, if she couldn't even dream. "But not everyone can dream," he continued, plucking some strings again, and starting a new tune. "So don't berate yourself for it."

"How did you know I--"

He chuckled, and she thought for a moment _I could fall asleep to that sound_. "It's not hard to imagine you would."

"Sorry." It was instinctual to apologize, even when she did things she could not control. Maybe she apologized because she knew others were capable of control. Kanda looked like someone who would not let even a sneeze dominate him. "Lenalee has tried so hard, too...it breaks my heart to tell her that the few hours of sleep I get are always dreamless because of how tired I end up."

"She would keep trying, even so." He was amused, but his smile was kind, and she wondered if a life-threatening experience had brought them close at all.

With a jump, she realized she had not had the time to properly thank him. Perhaps she should've baked him something. Or perhaps she should've gotten him some trinket from somewhere--but what would he like? Or perhaps words would do, for a start. "...Marie?"

"Hmm?"

"I wanted to thank you. For...for being there, during the attack. For trying to safe me...Even though, if I had been strong enough I wouldn't have needed saving, and you wouldn't have had to go to the trouble, so I apologize for that."

"Miranda," he softly said, and stopped playing for a minute. "You should not apologize. Your Innocence, it can either protect or destroy, and you make it protect. I think...that's remarkable. That you protect. We've lost so many, and still could, so," he murmured, pausing to recompose himself. "We should thank _you_." The smile he gave her made Miranda wonder if in some corner of her body, someone had remembered she was a woman, and if that was why her heart had started to beat faster.

She knew, the moment he started to play his tune again, that his sentence was final. For one minute, it made Miranda feel important, worthy, _good_. She relaxed. "When this is over," she wondered, "do you want to become a musician?"

Marie was silent for a long time, and Miranda almost thought that he would not answer. "When this is over," he said, the tone of his voice longing for something that looked impossible to obtain. A closure to their life as Exorcists, maybe. Peace. Tranquillity. "One can only dream."

--

That night, back in her room, Miranda did dream.

She dreamt of a modest house in a green prairie, of the laughter of children surrounding her, of warmth and a lingering sense of peace that wrapped around her like a blanket. She dreamt of music.

Soft, gentle music, played by gentle hands. She dreamt of inspiring that music, of inspiring those hands to move, of inspiring the musician to smile at her, and the children to laugh around them. She dreamt, and slept like a log for hours.

And when she woke up, in her not too spacious not too pretentious room, her eyes fell on the envelope dictating her next mission, and realized that the words were true.

"One can only dream."


End file.
